There are things to keep in mind. By prohibiting property tax, you prohibit confiscatory rates and seizures through nonpayment. But you also raise other tax rates to compensate. Some places have a lot of property and few people. I am a believer in taxing only income flows and not wealth. But then you have to deal with leins and seizures and provide language for that which cannot be abused. We know that with our courts you have to be explicit and then some.
Section 3 could use some work in defining what is conversion to private use such as renting the land out or offering private concessions at a public facility. But I am presenting this as an initial draft.
I tried posting the following had major problems...doing something wrong. Received in an e-mail, but had been on fox News.
Supreme Court Expands Reach of Eminent Domain
Thursday, June 23, 2005
WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth conflicts with individual property rights.
Thursday's 5-4 ruling represented a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
Local officials, not federal judges, know best in deciding whether a development project will benefit the community, justices said.
"The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including — but by no means limited to — new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
He was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.
At issue was the scope of the Fifth Amendment, which allows governments to take private property through eminent domain if the land is for "public use."
Susette Kelo and several other homeowners in a working-class neighborhood in New London, Conn., filed suit after city officials announced plans to raze their homes for a riverfront hotel, health club and offices.
New London officials countered that the private development plans served a public purpose of boosting economic growth that outweighed the homeowners' property rights, even if the area wasn't blighted.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has been a key swing vote on many cases before the court, issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.
The lower courts had been divided on the issue, with many allowing a taking only if it eliminates blight.
"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, as well as Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Nationwide, more than 10,000 properties were threatened or condemned in recent years, according to the Institute for Justice, a Washington public interest law firm representing the New London homeowners.
New London, a town of less than 26,000, once was a center of the whaling industry and later became a manufacturing hub. More recently the city has suffered the kind of economic woes afflicting urban areas across the country, with losses of residents and jobs.
The New London neighborhood that will be swept away includes Victorian-era houses and small businesses that in some instances have been owned by several generations of families. Among the New London residents in the case is a couple in their 80s who have lived in the same home for more than 50 years.
City officials envision a commercial development that would attract tourists to the Thames riverfront, complementing an adjoining Pfizer Corp. research center and a proposed Coast Guard museum.
New London was backed in its appeal by the National League of Cities, which argued that a city's eminent domain power was critical to spurring urban renewal with development projects such Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Kansas City's Kansas Speedway.
excerted.
http://www.foxnews.com
"Bump" comment of the day:
Dems send fake letters to our Republican congressmen. The MSM pushes the idea of "no polls".
The outcome? Republicans read and react to constituent letters that are fake.
Rush figured out he was getting fake calls, FreeRepublic realized trolls were among us, but the GOP reps still haven't figured it out.
Why not just use the ones that are already there that outlaw this?
I would add a provision that land taken under eminent domain may not be sold to a private entity except for the original owner or heirs for a period of 20 years. This would put an end to the practice of local government siezing land to sell to a developer so that they might enjoy higher tax revenues from the property.
I'll stick with the existing Constitution.
I don't think I agree with any of your proposed text.
** MAJOR SOCIALISM ALERT **
And who said that the Supreme Court liberals are trying to set up the judiciary as the tool of destruction of individual rights???
Welcome to the People's Republic of the United States!!!
Normally, statements in the Constitution apply only to the Federal Government. You need language that explicitly applies the Ammendment also to the States.
"Tax on all property, real and personal, except as income or on sale or transfer" needs a clearer statement of what's taxable and what's not.
No Constitutional amendment needed. The Supreme Court just ignored the 5th as it is.
We only need the 2nd at this point. It will be the only thing that will stop the outright tyranny.
"one-tenth of one percent" of what? The assessed value? The market value? The number of pixies inhabiting the land? The amount of wetlands contained within when it rains? And all as defined how?
I suggest that you need to specify this value as is done in California (i.e., the value at the last sale, period).
This should be voted in NOW. Before the Communists on the "Supreme" Court and their henchman in the legislature's complete their theft of the country.
This is a valid approach. Some of the original Constitutional debate concerned how to raise revenue with taxation of property being deemed impossible. Taxes on commerce and in particular foreign trade was seen as feasible. Unfortunately, the states have created departments to put a rate value on property and the Fed Gov has not stepped in to stop this practice, although they have the power.
Realistically, I don't think any of this stands a chance right now. However, I'll keep it in my thoughts next time I blow out my birthday candles.
Have to get rid of (1). It's a separate issue, and will only divide and distract.
But I'm all for the rest of it. I wholeheartedly support a Constitutional amendment to reverese this abhorrent SCOTUS ruling.
This goes along with "squatter's rights," which held that someone who did not "ride his fence" and check his land in 7 years deserved to lose it to someone who was willing to live on it and develop it.
Now, we can debate the rightness or wrongness of either, but no one can deny that in the U.S. the long-term effect of this, as Jefferson would have liked, was to break up estates and move land into the hand of people; to have people DO something with their land (i.e., to improve life for everyone); and accelerate economic growth.
And that should be for starters..
NEXT; buildings OWNed by Washington D.C..
and after that federal law should be subservient to State law.. on all things within the boundarys of that State..
THEN.. let the States fight it out on how big the federal gov't should BE...
In number (2), maybe "public infrastructure" should be defined more strictly, and the proposed amendment should specify the situations in which property seizure is warranted...
Besides, if we can get 3/4 of the state legislatures to approve an amendment, then we could get the state legislatures to repeal these obnoxious laws in the first place. That would be infinitely more productive.
AMENDMENT???? Amend what? If you think that the judicial branch cares about a constitution, think again. They can't read, or don't bother to read the plain english of our current constitution.
Exactly what do you want to do, give them another amendment to ignore?
How about just imposing a literacy requirement on judicial confirmations and judicial rulings. Some things are just nuance - the ruling you are protesting is simply functional illiteracy.